Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

I met Elder Pattie at church on Sunday morning, and told him happy Halloween... then he got mad, yelled *dangit!* and walked inside.... I think he misses Halloween.

It´s interesting that I was working with trees this week as well, The second counselor asked if I could use my *tree-cutting skills* to pruned the over-grown tree in front of his house. So Thursday morning we went down and I took that sucker out. I would have preferred to cut it into a star, or something cool, but he wanted a cube, so a cube is what he got. And for payment... we got lunch and ice cream, yay :D

The other day we had lunch with what I assumed was roast beef, or something like it, so I ate a bunch, and it was only after that I realized it was cow tongue, it wasn´t too bad, be jealous.

But the other big news for this weekend...... we had another baptism, wooooo.
We finally baptized João Paulo, he was being flaky a bit cuz his teeth were hurting or something, said he needed to go to the dentist and get them removed, so we gave him a blessing and we found out later that they stopped hurting that very same day (after 2 or 3 weeks of pain before) so he got interviewed Saturday afternoon, and his mom was really ticked for some reason ( she normally likes us and talks to us more than he does, but this time she wouldn´t even say hi) as we were leaving though, she started asking questions, and making protests and it seems that some people had been speaking nonsense to her about the church, ugh. oh well. But us 4 missionaries and him went to the church, held his baptism in the freezing water and all is fine and dandy, woooooo! He told us he didn´t want very many people at his baptism.. so that wasn´t too much of a problem :)

Though Sunday I was not a happy camper. not happy at all. It was the end of the elections here so everybody had to go vote, it was raining, nobody went to church, including João Paulo, so he didn´t get confirmed, my companion was complaining and whining all the day long, and all our appointments fell through. I´ve never seen the enemy work so hard in my life than he is here, it seems like SOMETHING always comes up to stop every single one of our investigators from going to church, not cool. But yeah, we closed our numbers, after a week that wasn´t too hot, (except for the baptism of course), didn´t feel like hearing my companion´s voice anymore and just went to bed.
shoo fly, don´t bother me.
And it doesn´t help that he´s always complaining about how he has no money. I have NO IDEA where his money goes, cuz i´m with him 24/7, but he always seems to run out of money then complains that he´s hungry. I don´t know how these brasilians manage to stay alive.

The 7th day Adventist lady is coming along nicely, however, she confessed to us that she´s not paying tithing, that she´s fed up with some things in her church, she´s fed up with her kids, and she´s looking for something to give her direction in her life. So we had a little talk-it-out session with her the other day, and she told us that she really wants to go to our church now and see how it is. sweet.

We´re also teaching a GOLDEN family right across the street from us, it´s funny how all the missionaries before us never bothered to knock on their door. But they all love the messages, and they believe everything we teach them, we watched The Testaments with them the other day, and they told us *totally, it´s all true* they would have gone to church yesterday, but the father of all lies messed up the mom´s leg, and they didn´t go. bummer. They´ve dug in pretty deep into the catholic church too, so we have to tread carefully about what we say, but it´s going.

That whole thing about *panic* has already started. I was walking down the street the other day, and just stopped..... I forgot about everything and thought *I´ve been here for almost 1 year... and what have I done? Where has that year gone? What good have I done? I havn´t done nearly half of what I´ve wanted to do on my mission.... where is that year of work? I don´t remember it;.....* Then it was funny to realize that the last day I had at home was still fresh and vivid in my mind, everything I did that day is crystal clear in my head, it seems like it happened yesterday, but what I did last week is already blurry for me. I´m walking in the flippn twilight zone, the world seems to stop when you´re on the mission, and you just speed ahead, and come home and realize how much the world has changed ( at least, that what it feels like is going to happen, cuz I havn´t come home yet)...
...very curious indeed.

I havn´t received the new shoes yet. But I got some soles from Elder Margalho, from his old shoes, so the holes are slowly getting bigger, but at least my foot isn´t hitting the ground anymore, haha. Yeah, there´s plenty of places to buy new shoes, but I figure I´ll just wait until my america shoes show up. And that pizza place sounds awesome, I´ll definitely have to pay a visit there, especially if it´s run by the guy from Chef´s Table, he´s a jolly guy, so it can´t be too bad.

So yup, there´s not much else to report down here, things are all good and dandy. This week should be better than the last, before I have a mid-life crisis and curl up in a ball in the house. (which probably won´t happen, but it´s still funny to think about, cuz it´s happened to others) We´ll probably just go out for ice-cream or something.

Pictures:
1. Before the massacre begins
2. After, well played sir.
3. João Paulo at his baptism.

anyways
*Oh my old man´s an All-Black
he wears the silver fern,
his old mates couldn´t take him,
so he´s out there for a turn.
La da da da da da da da da....*

Love you all, Miss you all
Elder Webber